What would you all recommend as a good starting point for someone just getting into philosophy?

But "start with the Greeks" is a legit answer

Derrida's Of Grammatology is good, then I'd read . Foucault's Discipline and Punishment too.

But seriously. Read this (especially part 2):
reddit.com/r/iamadeadcat/comments/4fwlfq/a_guide_to_starting_literature_in_6_easy_steps/

...

No, it is not.

gives you a taste of a few philosophers' views and ideas which you can use to determine which philosopher's actual writings to read
also pretty /comfy/ desu

START

Kill yourself.

Eh I understand why you suggest De Botton, especially since his work has in the past helped me gather a basic understanding of some philosophers that I wouldn't have otherwise read.
But I always find his "Self-help" spin on philosophy a bit distasteful, as if that's all the entire exercise of philosophy is there for and that philosophers are glorified therapists.

I shan't, for killing myself would be a blight upon the Lord.

Alain De Botton is to philosophy what microwavable meals are to gastronomy.

That's about as philosophical as John Green.

Better off strictly jerkin it to SFM sex videos on /gif/ instead amirite??

Plato or Descartes.

-ED FROM THE BOTTOM NOW WE'RE HERE

>you shouldn't start with the beginnings of western philosophy that literally everything else is built on
Umm...

Start with The Greeks.

>actually fucking linking to plebbit

mcfucking kill yourself

The novel "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gardner is absolutely fantastic. Otherwise, some good old Greeks (The trilogy about the death of socrates is great desu). And then read some of those "XYZ and Philosophy" books. Like The Matrix? Batman? Sure! Read The Matrix/Batman and Philosophy. This will get you familiar with the concepts in a way that ties to things already relevant to you in an approachable language, and these books are usually compilations by many modern professors with different topics, so they're quite diverse/broad.

From there, if there was any philosopher that stuck out from Sohpie's World, or the pop culture books then dive in to some real lit. Nietzsche, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Hegel, Emerson, Thoreau, Holt, Kierkegard, Freud, Jung. Gogogogo.

Reddit has more intelligent users than Veeky Forums, which is why I am posting my unrivalled opinions there rather than this wretched hole.

yeah I get that he gives simple intros to philosophers but his self-help angle is really annoying
like I saw a video he did on youtube where he talked about Plato's forms and how they can help us in real life if we took more time to consider the 'ideal forms' of our friendships etc.
I mean I like philosophy as much as the next Veeky Forums shitposter but Plato's forms are fucking useless and you pretty much have to misinterpret them in order to get anything meaningful from them

...

This book took such a hilariously bad take on Epicurus. Tried to argue he thought all sadness in life was based on the adviertising world, which is incosistent with Epicurianisn and full of holes even to me. An interesting take but something about reading such secondhand philosophy seems odd to me. To me the experience has always been reading what those philosophers said themselves, the way they wanted to explain it. It makes it a really personal experience, like a conversation.
1/10

The School of Life on Nietzsche bizarrely said many inaccurate things about Nietzsche, the one with beautiful Emma talking about the Birth of Tragedy. It wasn't even simplified or dumbed down, it was plain wrong.

Reading others when starting from 0 will make nothing but to accept everything that is in X book as a truth, will make your ideas easily shape to X ideal, seeing every philosopher as a deity that speaks only the truth when they're simple humans, simple humans with a point of view about life, constantly fighting against other philosophers because their point of views are different, but in the end those are just the same, nothing but opinions. So if you want my advice don't get into "Reading philosphy", spend time alone, talk to yourself, wonder the "why?" of things, in that way you'll make your own way of thinking.

For someone new, pic related isn't that bad. But as some user said, philosophy is wide, it'd be easier to pick up a theme and dig into it. Metaphysics aren't ethics, nor they are epistemology or theory of knowledge. You may as well look on wikipedia to get a very general view on what you can find in philosophy.

I remember the second year English students discussing discipline and punish and like their reading was worse than dog shit. Mostly because they hadn't the chops and perspective from reading other philosophical works.

I would say for the most part De Botton's problems in his book are very very apparent. This is then a good point to jump off into more reading. It's not great to start and end with, but the philosophers covered are good and influential and if it gets you into reading more and seeing different perspectives then great.

So what I'm saying is it's just good enough to be helpful, but also bad enough that you critically appraise early on.

This. Learn the history first, or fuck off.

more like de bottom lol

dude i was the library of the ghetto scene school i work at and they had like 4 or 5 copies of that shit, right next to that "nordic proust" crap, i was like uh ok then

thank god in important fields like science and engineering u aren't required to learn three thousand years of wrong stuff before u get to what's useful, unlike those "pass time" degrees for housewives and assorted other "gentlemen"

You aren't required to do that in actual philosophy programs, either. Only on Veeky Forums.

this is why we make fun of you
useful for what?

I had to learn all sorts of crap in engineering. Quite a lot of the general books introducing you to civil and structural engineering tell you about fucking Imhotep building the pyramids and Babylonians giving builders the death sentence when they fucked up.

>useful for what

solving world hunger and disease while raising the standard of living for the people of the developing world for one thing, not everyone is selfish as you ok, liberal arts majors are a disgrace

But you don't know anything about that m8.

>assuming everyone is a worthless person like u

did ur philosophy books tell u about projecting?

>civil engineering

lol what third world country did u just get off the boat from? only places with no technology or rule of law thing civil engineering is a good degree because their corrupt dictator always wants to build big dicks in the sand, stay fobby foblord

what he wanted out of his degree:
>solving world hunger and disease while raising the standard of living for the people of the developing world

what he got:
>changing the parameters in the pringles pressing machine so that the chips have 4.3% more crunch

M8 I've done my engineering education amd did work with ASF and EWB and even a couple of others. You're some neck beard fantasising on your computer. It's cringily obvious to me.

Whatever you're most interested in. Yeah, on the one hand you won't get everything, but on the other it's what you're most interested in.

oh right, now ur an engineer after ur "philosophy housewife" persona got smoked, in reality u are a angry lil irishman with no job and no friend, kill urself

It's really like you're doing some kind of role playing game. Like you've played too many videogames and can only see the world through that lens.

There are plenty of charities to get involved with that involve international aid and disaster relief and so on, I'd recommend it. You don't need to be in engineering or architecture either. But you'll find the bordering on arrogant attitude above is way off base. If these were problems some snotty nosed undergrad could solve then there wouldn't be a problem.

He's doing a live chat on the Guardian right now btw

30-Second Philosophies The 50 Most Thought-Provoking Philosophies, Each Explained in Half a Minute by Barry Loewer

Once you've read that just pick an author you were interested and start reading. Just fucking read.